Using God’s Time

Introduction

Good morning. God is good. Amen? Come on, open your Bibles of Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 1. Paul writes, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Moving down to verse 15. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. I have a question for many who are here this morning. And my question is, how many of you, and I’m asking for a show of hands, are a planner person? Raise your hand if you are a planner person.

Now just for fun, put your hands down. If you know someone who is a planner person and you tease them about that, raise your hand. Yeah, that was a little fun. Planning people take things like this, which is a planner, not mine. The fabulous pink doesn’t match my suit this morning. But what we do is you take you make appointments. You make plans, you make arrangements for something to happen. And you put it down in your planner. And then when you go to look at what you’re going to do the next day, or maybe the next week, or if you’re really prepared the next month, you know what you have on your schedule. And all about that schedule is something that we treasure dearly. We treasure our time.

As the collections, as the collection plates went by, I hope we were all moved by the fact that God has blessed us with so much, regardless of what number is sitting in your bank account. But can I tell you this morning that if you look around, and please do so, look around for a moment, you will see people with different amounts of income and money in their bank accounts. Now look around again. Look around again. You will see people with an identical number of something very valuable. Everyone here, at least as the Lord wills that we live, has the same amount of time. Twor, 168 hours a week. The question is, how will we spend that time? If I were to tell you that every day, $10,000 will be put in your bank account, but the catch is anything that you do not use or pull out of that account disappears at the end of the day.

Don’t you believe each and every one of us are going to go to the bank and withdraw every last penny every single day? Right? Of course we are. We value money, we want it, we consume it, we use it, we spend it out. But this morning I want to consider how do we go about using God’s time? If, after all, it is a resource, and if it’s given by God, God expects a return on that investment, as we will consider shortly. But notice a couple of quick thoughts before we get going to set your mind on the lesson this morning. Are you a giver or a taker of time? Consider, do you let others spend your time for you? Are you in control of your time?

Much like we wish to be in control of our money. We will be asked how well we saved time. No. Will we be asked how to prove how well we managed our time? Not quite. But we will be judged on how we did, and as your translations might say in verse 16, how we how we redeemed the time? Did we make the most of the opportunities that God sent our way? If you look with me in 2 Timothy chapter 4, in 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 7, the goal of this morning is to consider the thought of, at one point I’m going to face this moment in life. This very moment that Paul faced here in 2 Timothy chapter 4. You may know the verse, verse 7.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Can I consider it with you this morning? How we would go about being able to say something like that? With what confidence could Paul say that? Why would Paul feel confident to explain that to Timothy? If I were to ask you, have you redeemed the time? Have you fought the good fight? Have you ran the race? Have you kept the faith? There would be one point and one point alone to consider, and it’s what did I do in this life? What did I think about? What did I do? The point is, how did I spend my time? And when we consider how we spend our time, we realize that all of a sudden it’s not quite mine at all.

1. Time Matters

And time matters. Can I impress upon you that time matters immensely? How much do we value one year? Ask the student who’s failed a grade in school. What is the value of one month? Ask a mom and dad who were surprised a month early by their newborn baby. How about the value of one hour? Ask someone who missed a connecting flight. Because of a one-hour flight delay. How much do we value a half an hour? Ask the parents of the flower girl who missed the wedding by half an hour. Because they thought it was at 4 30 instead of four. How much do we value one minute? Ask the man who had a heart attack, but a doctor and paramedic were sitting one table over. What is the value of one second?

2. What Does God Expect From Me?

Consider the Olympic swimmer who spent his life trying to qualify for the Olympics and missed it by less than one second. Time matters. It matters how we spend it, it matters how we think about it. And most importantly, brothers and sisters, we will give an account to God for how we managed his time. So one of the first considerations then, and when we think, how should I spend God’s time is what does God expect from me? And I expect these to be very simple points. And what I’m building towards is very practical applications at the end of the lesson. But stay with me. Look with me at Romans chapter 12. There’s some very basic things that we understand God is calling us to do. In Romans chapter 12.

We see the groundwork for what Christians are supposed to be doing. In Romans chapter 12, you may know the verses. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, listen to this, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. What is this transformation? What is the renewal of the mind lead us to? Well, verse one, it helps us become holy and acceptable to God by making ourselves living sacrifices to him. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God.

How do we determine what the will of God is? We focus on what he wants us to be doing. What is that? Those things which are good and acceptable and perfect. This is perhaps the most important question we face as Christians. What does God expect from me? What does he want? What does this Almighty Heavenly Father want me to be doing with all that he’s blessed me with? Well, we understand some basic things. We understand that we need to worship together, not forsaking the assembly, but encouraging one another. Well, we understand that we need to gather together to partake of the Lord’s Supper to remember the death of Jesus and how he shed his blood for the beginning of the new covenant. And of course, we understand we need to abstain from wickedness.

We even understand that fathers should provide leadership in their household, that mothers should provide nurture and love in their household and rule it well. And we don’t argue with any of those things. But as a whole, the Bible doesn’t really tell us how to spend each and every minute, does it? And so that means that we as Christians have decisions to make. Look at Romans chapter 12 and verse 2 again. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Let me stop for a minute. How are we going to decide how to spend our time? What does God want from me in those areas of gray where he hasn’t said, What do I do from one o’clock to two o’clock every day?

That by testing you may discern what the will, what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect? God expects us to know what he wants us to do because he’s given us his word. It’s up to us to train our minds to discern between good and evil, and to practice the good and live as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. And so that raises a few questions. Well, first of all, what type of time commitment is needed from me? What does he want us to do? How much time do I have to spend doing the things that I know he wants me to do? Well, let’s look at some basic things the Bible commands us to do with our time. First of all, we understand we need personal and private study of the Word.

Look with me in Acts chapter 17. In Acts chapter 17 and verse 11. A group of people were commended. Why? Acts chapter 17 and verse 11. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the Word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Why was it commended to them? Why was it a big deal that they studied? Why were they more noble than their other, perhaps brothers and sisters? Because they searched the scriptures daily. Why does God expect us to search the scriptures daily? To grow closer to Him. Otherwise, how are we going to know what He expects from us? Otherwise, how are we going to come to love God? Because He first loved us. You can’t have a relationship with a person that you don’t know.

And we oftentimes try to escape by in this world without a relationship with the God that we say we love and adore most. And we speak to him maybe once or twice a day. Once or twice a week. How often do you allow the words of God to reign within yourself, to flush through your system so that when you live, when you act, you know what God expects from us. Let’s move on. God expects something else. He expects us to help others out. Look at me in Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, after Peter’s great sermon, look down at verse 44. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

I’m not advocating a system where we all just have a huge junk sale and sell what we got. That would be my contribution, junk to the sale. But I’m saying that God does expect us to help each other out. He expects us to help each other emotionally. And he really expects us to help each other physically. He expects brothers and sisters to provide for their own. Not only heads of households for our own family members, but even amongst the body of Christ. We are to look out for one another, help one another. Yes, that means when someone’s sick, going to them, perhaps giving them encouragement in any way that that can be. It can be online, it can be through the phone. And it really does mean a lot to meet in person.

What about someone who needs help with something around the house, who’s physically unable? We could be there for them, and we know all this. We know that we are here to help others and to serve God. And of course, one final aspect, as we already touched on, you know, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 17. Pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. It teaches us the value and necessity of prayer. It’s something that is immensely valuable. We should keep it going. And it tells us the power and necessity of it because we keep doing it over and over. God wouldn’t tell us to do something without reason. It’s so we can grow closer to Him. So the Father can hear the struggles of His children. What an amazing God we serve, who wants us, who speaks to us through His Word, who wants us to help out others, and who lets us pray to Him, approach the Almighty throne of our Almighty God.

3. Being a Christian Is Hard Work

What a wonderful God we serve. So now let’s go back and look at Romans chapter 12 once again. Back in Romans chapter 12. Verse 2 says we need to be transformed as followers of God. Living sacrifices. Now let’s hold no punches here. Being a Christian is hard work. Amen? It runs counterintuitive to all of our natural impulses. Being a Christian is hard work, and it’s hard work that doesn’t stop until we hit the grave. Christianity doesn’t go on pause. Christianity is a life, it is a way of living. It is 24-7 adherence and exaltation to the will of our mighty God. In fact, part of the reason being a Christian is so tough is because the minute all of our sins are washed away, Satan comes after us even harder.

He wants nothing more than to destroy the body of Christ. Pluck us out one by one. How is he going to do that? How is Satan going to pluck away these Christians, us lovers of God? After all, everyone here this morning would say, I put God first. How does he get us? Because he gets us with things we don’t see the value of at the time. We don’t realize that spending hours and hours in front of the internet screen is pulling us away from God. We don’t realize that because Satan has sold us the myth and we bought it with all of our funds. We let him dictate how we want to live rather than choosing to be living sacrifices, wholly and acceptable to God. Let me ask you how different is your life now from when before you were a Christian?

4. Redeem the Time: Life Is a Series of Opportunities

Is it a lot different? Is it practically not different at all? Is it a little bit different? How would we even know that? How do we determine if I am being a living sacrifice? How do I determine if I am spending my time wisely redeeming the time? Well, that’s the question. How do I do this? How do I redeem the time? So go back with me to our text in Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5, once again in verse 15, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. I think the section really breaks down what is expected from us. Notice in verse 16, the word time there really means redeem, season or opportunity.

Because Paul’s telling us, make the best use of the season or redeem the opportunities before us. We need to realize that life is a series of opportunities. Is that how you think about it? Do you think about every encounter you have as an opportunity to shine as a light for Christ? Do we even think of some opportunities as a chance to shine as a light for Christ? When we go into a meeting at work, do we consider how I might be different than others because of my morality and my ethics in being a Christian? Do I consider that maybe I don’t go into work on a Sunday or Wednesday night, if at all possible, or if at all? Because I have a God to worship. And I have fellow brothers and sisters who I can be encouraging and who I can draw encouragement from.

Because I recognize heaven is worth it all. Do we do that? Do we see life as opportunities? Do we say, I can shine this way? Or do we fall back into line, into the world, letting time slip through our fingers? Remember Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 13? Fear God and keep his commandments. This is what puts life into perspective and what should drive us. Now look with me in Matthew chapter 25. And I want to get to a very common saying. I want to see how it’s really derived from Scripture here. Matthew chapter 25. If you notice with me the parable of talents beginning in verse 20, you know it. A man was entrusted, someone with five talents, a man with two talents, and a man with one talent.

But pick up the reading with me in verse 20. Matthew chapter 25 and verse 20. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents. Here I have made five talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And we know that the man of the two talents did the same. But notice verse 24. He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

Here, you have what is yours. But his master answered him, You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents, for to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away, and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. What were the talents? You can look at it as several things, but basically, it was an ability to do something.

Whether it was money, where you think of actual talents or time, it was an ability to do something. But look at the next story in Matthew chapter 25. This throne scene, when Jesus is pardoning those right and left. Notice with me in verse 37. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you? Or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly. I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. Contrast that with verse 41.

Then he will say to those on the left, Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me new food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison, and you did not visit me, then they will also answer, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then he will answer to them, saying, Truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Notice, it’s those who had ability, those who the Lord blessed with the talents, five, two, and one. They had an ability to do something with that. And notice those in Matthew chapter 25, even when they didn’t know it, there were opportunities to serve the Lord. What did Jesus say in verse 39 when they asked him, and when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you, verse 40? And the king will answer them.

They asked the question in the verses preceding verse 40. When did we see you? When did we take the opportunity? And Jesus says in verse 40, you did it to one of the least of these of my brothers. When you took the opportunity that you didn’t even know was there. Making the most of the opportunities, redeeming the time. Because the days are evil, if we don’t, we’ve been distracted. It doesn’t matter what the distraction is. It doesn’t matter if we’re fearful of punishment. It matters that we didn’t do the will of the Lord. And so we need to remember who gave us everything and to whom everything is going to return. I want to tell a story about why does this matter? Considering that God has given us everything, considering that God loves us.

Why do we have to be so careful with our time? With the timid voice and idolizing eyes, the little boy greeted his father as he returned from work. Daddy, how much do you make an hour? Greatly surprised by giving his boy a glaring look, the father said, Don’t bother me now. I’m tired. But Dad, just tell me, please, how much do you make an hour? The boy insisted. The father finally giving up reply, $20 an hour. Okay, Daddy, could you loan me $10? The boy asked, showing us restlessness and positively disturbed the father. He yelled, so that was the reason you asked how much I earn, right? Go to sleep and don’t bother me anymore. It was already dark, and the father was meditating on what he said and was feeling guilty.

Maybe he thought his son wanted to buy something. Finally trying to ease his mind, the father went to his son’s room. Are you asleep, son? asked the father. No, Daddy, why? replied the boy, partially asleep. Here’s the money you asked for earlier, the father said. Thanks, Daddy, rejoiced the son while putting his hand under his pillow and removing some money. Now I have enough. Now I have twenty dollars. The boy said to his father, who was gazing at his son, confused at what his son had just said. Daddy, can I buy an hour of your time? We don’t even realize how valuable our time can be. It doesn’t have to be some grand gesture. It doesn’t have to be sitting down with our Bibles. Sitting down, kneeling down to pray.

Serving God is a lifestyle. And when we consider all the ability God’s given us and recognize all the opportunity we have every single day. How dare we neglect the great responsibility God’s given us? It’s easiest, it’s easy for us to look at the Father and the story and to say, what a terrible Father. How does God look at us? What have we done with what He’s given us? How do we account for all that money that’s in our bank accounts or in our closets hanging up? Or in those cars we drove, or on the TV screens we’re infatuated with. How will we explain all the time and money lost to the God who gave us everything? We need to consider that time has value. It affects people, it affects God, and most importantly, brothers and sisters, it affects what our eternal state will be.

Consider what you could be doing with your time, and all of a sudden, that five, ten, thirty minutes, an hour sitting down in front of your television screen going. That could be an hour serving others. That could be an hour spent card writing. That could be an hour spent calling and encouraging people. That’s an hour that could be spent traveling, visit someone who shut in. It could be an hour and study or prayer to the Lord. Any of that time. The opportunity cost of rejecting what God has given us is eternity. And if we get that perspective right, we can understand the importance of how to redeem the time. So, how can I be better with my time for God? That’s an important question. How can I redeem my time?

5. Budget Your Time: List Your Time and Expenses

And I want to compare it to something that we do a very good job with. I’m going to compare it to our money. What do you do when you have a precious resource like money that you want to be very careful with? You make a budget. So I want to consider some budgeting tips, as perhaps laid out by Dave Ramsey and see what we can do about budgeting our time. Remember Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 15 and 17. Look carefully then how you walk not as unwise but as wise. Verse 17, therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. What is the will of the Lord for my time? What am I supposed to do? Make the best use of the time because the days are evil.

So let’s consider with me this morning. How can I redeem my time? Listen close. It should be practical. It should be good. I want to blow your mind on how a perspective change can make all the difference in our service. Let’s budget. First of all, list all of your time. Whether you want to admit it or not, we have 24 hours a day, 168 hours in a week, and 720 hours in a 30-day month. Remember those numbers. 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, 720 hours every 30 day month. So let’s break it down. What’s the first step in our budgeting? To list all of our income. Okay, we got our numbers. 24 hours a week, 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, 720 hours a 30-day month.

Next. List all of your expenses. Now, here’s where it gets tricky. Write down everything you have to do with your time. Maybe 40 hours a week of work, about 49 hours a week of sleep. That’s about seven hours a night. Some of you are thinking that sounds pretty great to me. That’s about 89 hours. Remember, like in budgeting, the goal is zero. You don’t want to let money float away from you. The key is to have every dollar and cent budgeted. My question is if as Christians we’re going to redeem the time, would we even think about making sure that we have all the crevices and all the time gaps plugged so we can serve God to the best of our abilities? Notice with me some potential time wasters.

They say often that that cup of coffee that costs $2 a day over the course of a year can be about $730. It’s two times $365. I’m hoping I did my math right. Money can get away from us like that, but I can tell you time slips even faster. Let me let me warn you of some time wasters. Facebook. Five minutes can become 50 minutes, can become five hours in the snap of your hand. You look at one picture, you want to look at the other picture. You look at someone’s picture, you see them tagged another one. Well, you want to see what’s up with their life. And oh, but I can do good things on Facebook. Great, do it. But is that how we’re spending most of our time on Facebook?

If you’re like me, it’s not even close. Okay. Time was your number two. TV watching. One football game turns into another football game. And then Florida State’s gonna play and struggle with Oklahoma State at 8 o’clock. Gotta watch that. Time slips away from us. Now, maybe you planned for it. Maybe you said today I’m gonna sit down and watch college football. You can be doing other good things while you’re doing that, but let’s be careful that we know what we’re doing. Because when you look back at your day and you say, you know what? I had 168 hours this week to spend doing something, and I spent 25 watching television, how are we going to account to God for that colossal waste of time? Consider another time waster.

Hobbies. Football. Crafts. We do them because we like them. How about this one? Everyday living. I’m not against having a clean house, although my wife may disagree. But the truth is, our house doesn’t need to be cleaned nine times a week. Some moms are going to come after me. But the fact is, the top of yourselves, all of these things, they don’t need to be dusted a million times. We do it because it makes us feel good and it makes our house look good. But if it gets in the way of service, if we start spending all of our excess time cleaning and working outside in our yard and planting flowers and making sure the hedges are right and re mulching again, and then remulching the next day because we missed the patch, and then pulling up the weeds that have sprung since the last hour when we pulled weeds, we’re going to get distracted from the things we should be doing.

6. Set Priorities

And I’m telling you, that time adds up. What is more important? Having weeds in your yard and studying the gospel. Or having a perfectly manicured yard and a not perfectly manicured soul. What should we be focusing our time on? Again, these dilemmas do not necessarily have to be one or the other, but that goes into a second point, which is set priorities.

See how you can stretch out my time. Kill two birds with one stone, baby. Are you in the car? I believe Adam called that for your kids a captive audience. When you’re in the car, when you’re driving to work, that doesn’t have to be lost time. That can be time spent in prayer and meditation on the good word of God. That can be spent on the phone, perhaps, wirelessly, probably. Calling other Christians. We don’t have to be so dogmatic about what we’re doing that we forget about all the opportunities that we do have. Are you cooking a meal? Cook one plate extra to take to a widow who could use the food or at least the nice gesture. Are you with your kids? Being a good father, being a good mother.

Teach them about the word of God. Bond with them over the words of life. Make the best use of the time. But consider in setting our priorities. What are our priorities? Can you imagine if we preemptively schedule things for Christ? The budget, and this is basically how I’m going to wrap up this morning. In our budget, we put first things first, don’t we? Rent has to be paid. The mortgage has got to be paid off. We’ve got to have food, gotta have shelter, gotta have clothing. Those go first. No one who’s a good financial steward of money would say, put in your cruise and your trip to Italy first and then see what you have left. We set priorities. Here’s my question. Do we set the priorities of God first or do we fill God in with the gaps?

I think a lot of us would hesitate and balk at scheduling something from 9 to 12 o’clock on a Sunday morning, but what about Wednesday evening? What about Friday afternoon when we have time after work to pray or to read my Bible or to call someone? How are we using the time? And I’ve got to tell you, I’m a little bit concerned. I don’t remember the number I was shown because I was talking when Uncle Mark gave me the number. Our gospel meeting this March. 118 people on Monday night, 103 people on Wednesday evening. Some good lessons by Brother Curtis Pope. Last Sunday morning at 11 o’clock, 237 people here. Sunday before that, 211. Sunday before that, 226 people. Over a hundred people were here last Sunday and the Sunday before that.

And if you don’t believe me, I’ll go back to the Sunday of the meeting or before it, 210 and 208. About a hundred people were missing. Why? Because we failed to plan for God first. Everyone has circumstances that come up. Everyone has commitments that have to be kept. But we could head off a whole lot of them if we spent half the time planning our time for God that we do taking care of our precious bank account. Consider how much time you spend looking at your funds, making sure you have enough, making sure you can buy that next car you want or need. How much time do you spend making sure that you are redeeming the time? God has given us so much.

Where is everyone? We need to draw a line. Sometimes in our budgeting, you have to draw a line where spending can go no further. Do you have the courage to draw the line on earthly activities, on things that are good now, enjoyable now? Imagine with me a world where the 200 of us spent one hour a month. I’m telling you, we have 720 hours a month on a 30-day month. If each and every person here this morning, it was north of 200, spent one hour a month writing cards. How many cards could be written? You don’t like card writing? What if all of us spent one hour of the 720 a month? You fell in the blank. Imagine the good that could be done. Can you imagine a physical need that would be left unmet with 200 hours of manpower?

And that’s if we did it for one hour a month apiece. Imagine if we dared to do two hours. Or dare to spend three. What can we do for God? God has given us everything, including his only begotten Son, who died on the cross for our sins, and sometimes I don’t want to spend my time for him. Because the truth is, I didn’t think about it. When we fail to plan, we plan to fail. How are you spending God’s precious time? What type of account will you give to God? We need to consider that this isn’t a joke. And yes, you may not write out a calendar and say, I’m going to be at worship this time and I’m going to spend an hour on Friday in prayer, but you know what?

Conclusion

We would be a lot better for it if we did. You can’t deny that it would be useful. You cannot deny that writing out your prayer times or writing out times that you’re going to learn new songs or read the Bible would be useful to you. The point is the mindset. Do we have the mindset that Paul wanted us to have? Looking carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. The truth is, the days are evil, the world is corrupt and wicked. But God is pure, Christ is holy, and he wants to present us holy, spotless, and without blemish before our God. Will you let him? Will you choose to live that life, seeking to be holy for God is holy, being a living sacrifice, presenting yourself wholly and acceptable in the sight of God?

If you have never put on Christ in baptism, recognize you can have your sins taken away and begin this wonderful walk. And if you have fallen off the path, you’ve been using your time poorly in the sight of God, remember you can get back on. And what a joy, what a privilege, what a goal to run for. Eternity in heaven with the Almighty God. If we can help you in any way, come forward right now as we stand and as we sing.